Artist's Notes:
The Zen Series is inspired by the painting techniques of zen masters and oriental calligraphers, who spend hours grinding ink and adding just the right amount of water to attain the desired consistency. They then spread the ink on rice paper with several strokes of the brush, in the same manner that I am applying paint on canvas.
My process is to create highly-textured backgrounds using shades of off-whites. I then mix paint with gels and mediums for the foreground, spend a few minutes in silence and attunement, and have but one go at each piece.
They are powerful and authentic recordings of a moment in time and space — no additions, changes, erasures, amendments.
And what I am discovering is that the skeletal, bare bones structure of these works is simply mirroring my inner process — reducing events and experiences to essentials, getting rid of what is outworn and no longer useful on the journey.

Artist's Notes:
The Chthonic Forces Series represents part of my quest to embrace and work with these powerful energies emerging at this time. Certainly underwater volcanic eruptions and resulting tsunamis are examples of these forces, which seek to create balance and freedom without regard for and in spite of human existence.
They are dark, primitive, mysterious, earthy, intense, impersonal. Their arising often engenders fear and even terror, because they cannot be controlled. Working with these forces also means a willingness to descend into the Underworld, as did Persephone in the Greek myth, so that one can fully experience the depths of one's psyche and be whole. The purpose of the journey is to find the Light within the Darkness, and bring it forth.

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